This Caladrius a Phoenix Make
by Kala Sathinee
Summary: Freed from Niflheim hands by Prince Regis, Ardyn chooses to defy the fate chosen for him by the gods. Yet, just as prophesied events near their conclusion, he finds himself in another world. (Good Ardyn AU. Chapters will jump through time, much like my Bucky story.)
1. Where Peace And Rest Can Never Dwell

_Chapter I - Where Peace and Rest Can Never Dwell_

* * *

_M.E. 721_

Ardyn was certain that even if he'd spent every moment of the last two thousand years imagining what the future would look like, he would never have envisioned this.

Besithia's facility was an endless maze of stark, flat walls and floors, polished to a shine beneath blazing white lights that made Ardyn's eyes ache and his head throb. The air was dry and smelled of chemicals—warm enough to be bearable but too chilled to be truly comfortable. There were no soft surfaces. No cushions, no curtains, no tapestries. The couches were hard and upholstered with unyielding leather. Even his bed was uncomfortably firm, the blankets rough and thin.

There was no life here. Merely existence. Ardyn sincerely hoped that the rest of the world was different.

He'd been here for seven months. Or so he'd been told. He'd spent most of that time in a coma and he had no recollection of the few times he'd woken. He remembered being freed, though he rather wished he didn't. Cold horror settled in his gut every time his mind replayed the screams of the young man on Angelgard, every time he closed his eyes and saw that twisted, dying face, or relived stolen memories.

Perhaps Somnus had been right. Perhaps he was a monster.

But at least he wasn't as much a monster as the man standing next to him.

"Have you reconsidered?" Besithia asked. His tone was conversational, but something dark lurked behind it.

"I've no desire to make daemons for you." Ardyn glanced out at the bleak, mountainous terrain outside the window. "Rest assured, I am grateful to you for liberating me. But my calling is to eradicate daemons; not create more."

Besithia snorted. "I don't believe in callings. Daemons are simply another tool. We would be fools not to exploit their potential."

"We would be fools to loose them upon our fellow man."

"Why?" Besithia started down the hall and Ardyn was forced to follow. "It's hardly different from firing a gun at them, or dropping a bomb."

Ardyn snarled. "You know why it is different, Verstael. The research in your laboratory tells me as much."

Besithia gave a dismissive wave. "Biological weapons are a reality of warfare in this day and age. The Empire already employs Anthrax, Coxiella, Cholera, and Black Typhus. I don't see how weaponizing the Scourge is any more dangerous." A flash of his access card and they passed through an irising door into a sloped passageway. "It's not as infectious as Coxiella, nor as contagious as Rotavirus or Malaria."

"Yet it is invariably deadly," Ardyn countered.

"If an infection is caught in the first forty-eight hours it will respond to antibiotics and antimalarials." They reached level ground and Besithia looked over his shoulder. "It is only superstition that keeps people afraid of the Scourge. One plasmodium is not going to bring about an apocalypse."

Under his breath, Ardyn growled. "Your arrogance just might."

The way Besithia glanced back at him made Ardyn certain that he'd been heard. But he said nothing and carried on, through another irising door and into a space even more devoid of life than those above. Here there were no concessions to civilization. Just metal gantries and reinforced concrete and buzzing fluorescent lights.

"Now, I'm aware that I cannot force you to do anything anathema to your nature, but allow me to at least make sure your decision in properly informed."

Before them was a long observation window. Lights came on in the space beyond it and Ardyn gasped. Encased in ice and lying prone beneath the blasts from massive freezer units, was the Infernian. Small, for an astral, but every bit as handsome as the legends claimed.

"You subjugated a god... and brought him here?"

Besithia smiled a serpent's smile. "He was sound asleep, just like the legends said he'd be, so we put him on ice." He leaned on the railing and looked at Ardyn. "Do you think you could turn him?"

Ardyn blinked. "Into a daemon?"

"If you manage to daemonify a deity, you could learn truths no mere mortal could ever dream of knowing. You'll access two thousand years of his memories, and, if you can control him, he'll be a weapon of supreme power. It's certainly an enticing offer, isn't it?" Besithia gestured out at the sleeping god. "Just think. You could exact sweet revenge through divine retribution."

"You know nothing of what I want," Ardyn spat.

"I don't," Besithia said. "But I know you have no other options."

Ice settled in Ardyn's stomach at those words. He'd suspected from the start that Besithia would not allow him to leave, but he'd held out hope that he would at least be given the freedom to choose not to be part of his experiments. He had no idea what sort of tortures might await him, but memories of racks and stakes and boiling cauldrons rebounded upon him mind. He steeled himself. His body knew pain. Besithia would find him a well-taught student.

Still grinning like a shark, Besithia pushed off from the railing, fingering something in his pocket. "Well, shall we?"

Ardyn lingered a moment at the glass. If he awakened the Pyreburner could he bargain for his freedom? If he called upon a messenger, let Shiva know what had become of her beloved, would the gods grant him the release of death? Or at least send him somewhere far from the dreadful man who was beckoning toward another door. He supposed he could try fighting his way out... But did the young soldiers and researchers deserve his wrath?

"Come! See the fruits of my magitek research. This way."

"It would seem you and I are both prisoners here," Ardyn muttered to the slumbering deity before trailing behind Besithia.

As they strolled into a large, open warehouse space, the scientist continued. "The ancient civilization of Solheim, forefathers of our magiteknology, once flourished on this land. Had they not incurred the wrath of the gods, they may have remained prosperous to this day."

"And you wish to restore them to greatness." Thoughts of Aera, dancing about ancient ruins, taking rubbings of carvings for study at home, bounding from inscription to inscription with the joy of a child, choked him.

"To surpass them. Which is why I need you to lend me your strength. But I'm certain magiteknology and daemons are the keys to unlocking the door to a new future."

Ardyn exhaled. "Chief Besithia, I thank you for the information you have provided me... and for the pleasant memories of times past... But looking over your research has only strengthened my conviction that the Scourge is not something to be toyed with."

Whatever Besithia had intended to say in response remained unspoken. A thrill of magical energy prickled on Ardyn's skin; the sharp whine of a warp sounded high above him. Men and women in fitted black uniforms landed in a line of perfectly synchronised crouches. Their faces and hair were obscured by hoods and veils. The after-image of their warps were blue... Just like Somnus.

"Lucians! Damn it!" Besithia fled, though the soldiers paid him no mind.

"Qun'mi Squad. Adagium sighted," the nearest soldier said. "Requesting backup from Nimbus Squad."

Ardyn remained where he stood. The soldier before him sounded about his age—his physical age, at least—and moved with a restrained confidence. She was too old to still be a zealot, and she sounded reasonable. Her features, what he could see of them, were classically Lucian.

"Did you come to kill me?"

"Or die trying."

Something in the air changed. It was heavy, like breathing water. The world pitched around him. Sweat prickled on his skin and his heart raced in his chest. The blue warp-light distorted the soldiers' faces—dissolved hands and masks to reveal the faces beneath. Every one of them was Somnus.

"Just as you would kill me. Right, brother?"

Ardyn shrunk back, stomach twisting, skin crawling in anticipation of pain. Somnus' blade came to his hand already dripping in blood. Ardyn turned, but Somnus was behind him too. A circle of him—surrounding Ardyn.

"Well, I'm afraid to say you'll never know the satisfaction of taking my life. I'm already dead, and have been for a long time." The circle of Somnus' held their swords aloft and Ardyn flinched. Somnus snarled, voice like dripping hemlock. "Though I may be gone, my blood, my desires, still live on in Lucis. They live on in the minds and hearts of the soldiers before you. What sort of legacy have _you _left behind, brother?"

Ardyn lashed out, his scarlet blade coming to his hand in a shower of crystalline shards, but his swing met empty air. Somnus dissolved into mist with a laugh and someone cried out. The soldiers, who had warped clear, charged. He dodged and parried, but he was outnumbered. A spear tip caught him in the ribs and a curved knife blade managed a clean slash of the ligaments of both knees. The pain was fleeting but still drew a cry.

"While you were lost in slumber, I was busy building a kingdom," Somnus continued, his voice coming from all around. "You have nowhere to return."

It was impossible to parry all the soldiers' strikes. For every blade turned aside, a warp-strike caught him. For every warp-strike dodged, a sword would cleave his flesh.

"I don't want to fight you," he said as he held the leader in a sword-lock.

"Then don't."

Face-to-face he could see her eyes and they were cold—focused. "Please. Let us talk."

A sword drove between his ribs. Black blood splattered on the concrete. He struck out, reflexive and instinctual, and the Rakshasa Blade cut through bone and sinew. One of the soldiers—a young man—fell in a spray of blood, his head no longer attached. Ardyn blinked, transfixed, his heart thumping in his throat, and Somnus' voice spoke again.

"Don't you realize? You're the scourge who ought to be purged. Perhaps you ought to sleep away your sadness."

Steel flashed in the corner of his eye. A warp sounded behind him. The world pitched again. Ardyn gave a cry and power burst from him, throwing the soldiers to the ground in a cloud of miasma and purple light.

"You monster."

The armiger whirled to life around him. Red, crystalline weapons launched forth, skewering the soldiers.

"I hope you know it's your fault Aera is dead," Somnus commented as blood spread over the concrete. Reinforcements warped in and Somnus' voice became a sneer. "That girl proved your undoing, you know."

"No." The word rang hollow. Ardyn could smell blood—blood on white linen, blood running over his hands, blood carelessly flicked from a sword. He didn't wait for the attack this time; he rushed the soldiers, overpowering and daemonifying the first several who came within reach.

"You were too caught up in your idealized delusions to save your beloved." Somnus laughed, but for a moment it sounded wrong—too deep, and tinny, like it was coming from a speaker. "You deserve to wander the darkness for all time."

The floor shook beneath Ardyn's feet. The fans to his left belched fire, melting the chain link separating them from the rest of the hangar. Sparks and shattered fan blades exploded outward, bouncing off the walls and floor, trailed by molten metal raindrops. The few remaining soldiers broke off, their attention shifted to the spreading flames.

Besithia remerged, trotting away from the burning control room, as a massive shape rose from the wreckage. A crown of curving horns adorned in rings and chains of gold. Coppery flesh glowing like molten metal and wreathed in flame. Eyes white hot in a snarling face.

"Blast." Besithia sounded more annoyed than surprised.

Ardyn staggered back. "He's awake!" Ifrit spoke, but without an Oracle to interpret, his words were unintelligible. He shouldn't have been able to break out. He'd been frozen solid. Months, Besithia had kept him imprisoned, and he woke now? _Think about that later. _

"We must stop him before he destroys everything."

It had been a long time since Ardyn had fought a god. He was out of practice, unarmoured, alone. Besithia was fleeing; the Lucian soldiers hung back, seemingly uncertain whose side to take.

Ardyn's heart still raced, Somnus' words echoing in his ears. Heat washed over him and the urge to flee, to hide, to curl to the floor in submission, nearly overcame him. His skin crawled and nausea burned in his gut. He stood transfixed, his palm sweating around the hilt of his sword. Once more the thought of offering an alliance crossed his mind. But Ifrit did not share his hesitation.

One of the Infernian's enormous hands closed tight around Ardyn and lifted him from the floor. He spoke again in the astral tongue but Ardyn paid no heed to the words, only to the burning, choking heat of his grip. The smell of smoke, the crackle of flames, dry, hot air in his lungs... He couldn't move. He was burning. It was too much... too much. Remembered sensations burst upon him—wrists bleeding and raw beneath rough rope, pitch clinging to his skin, heavy, viscous, filling his nostrils... boiling. Screaming as skin cracked and peeled and burned away. Screaming until his lungs filled with fire.

Ardyn thrashed, grabbed at the hand that held him, and dug his nails in. Power erupted from his veins, sucking the light from the room. Ifrit howled and sharp pain spiked into Ardyn's skull. Images and sensations he had no words for flared behind his eyes like novas—visions of continents with no names; strange beasts and seas teeming with life neither plant nor animal and utterly alien; visions of Solheim; of great cities and crowds in bright clothes; of towering explosions that blossomed like second suns; of freezing eternities of darkness and stars and barren worlds of sand and stone and ice. A collision in the dark. Stone splintering in eerie silence. Two asteroids spinning away from one another—one, white and crystalline, vanishing into the endless night—its glittering shards tumbling in every direction. Falling in a ball of fire. Colossal cycads and warm, shallow seas. Mossy earth and bright sunlight. Nights that held no terrors. White crystal meteors punching craters in the ground—plants rotting into grey soup wherever they landed. Animals dying, spilling black ichor from their eyes, noses, mouths, and pores. Bodies twisting into new shapes, rising to hunt as the sun went down.

The crystal. His own face reflected there.

"No..."

Ardyn dropped to the floor, gasping like a drowning man. The concrete beneath him, the tarp-draped machinery, and the panelled walls came back into focus, painted orange in the light of the fires.

Ifrit crumpled to his knees with a strangled sound. Glistening black spread over his flesh, draining him of colour and threading, spidery, through his veins. The nails of his left hand lengthened into talons, gouging slashes in the floor. He spoke, and this time Ardyn understood the words.

"You dare to subjugate the divine?"

Ardyn stared past him as he disappeared, as golden light pierced his chest, the image of his face in the crystal lodging in his heart like a morningstar. "I was the one chosen to be king...?"

He was still dizzy, still buzzing with his racing pulse. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to force the panic down, but the floor swayed beneath him. Darkness closed in—warm, comforting. The soft scent of sylleblossoms drifted in as a distant voice called.

"Ardyn... Ardyn."

There was soil beneath his feet. Around him, in the darkness, the only light was the gentle golden glow of pyreflies. Wheat swayed around him and on a patch of bare ground, a body lay—glowing, clad in white, blonde hair flaring about them like a halo.

Aera.

Ardyn staggered to her side, put his hands to her slender shoulders. "Aera." At his touch, she stirred.

"Forgive me." Her voice broke, as if she were close to tears. She sat up, wound her fingers in Ardyn's shirt. She felt real... alive... Her skin was warm. Her chest rose and fell with her breath. "I defied the will of the gods and revealed to Somnus that you had been chosen to be king. I never dreamt he would try to kill you."

She wasn't alive. But this was no hallucination. Ardyn brushed his palm against her cheek. "But he did. Somnus fooled everyone so he could usurp the throne." He failed to stop the bitterness that entered his voice. "Everything that happened... it's all his fault."

Aera rose to her knees and seized Ardyn's shoulders. "No! Listen to me! It's my fault. I'm the one who ruined your future. This was divine retribution for my sins."

"You've no sins to atone for." Ardyn reached up to cup her face but she collapsed against him. He couldn't fathom why she would want him to blame her, couldn't begin to imagine the effort it must have taken to appear to him like this. He cradled her, wound his fingers in her hair and looked upward into the inky blackness. "Gods! Answer me! Why have you burdened us with this fate?" He didn't expect the gods to heed his call, but the demand was cathartic. And he wouldn't let Aera see how resigned he had become.

His bravado broke when Aera released a pained noise. "Aera." She curled in on herself and he reached out with his powers, the instinct to alleviate her pain taking over. Violet light flared in the dark. Aera cried out and it was a knife in Ardyn's heart. She thrashed and shame and horror twisted behind his ribs. "No!" he wailed as black spread through Aera's veins. "Aera, please."

In a sudden burst of strength, she shoved him back. "In the names of the gods above... fulfill your calling, Ardyn, and punish me for my sins."

"Aera..."

"Kill me."

The words struck him like a slap. He froze, staring agape at her as she collapsed to the ground. This couldn't be real. It couldn't. Another nightmare, some symptom of his... what had Besithia's doctors called it? Post Traumatic Stress?

"That's right. Kill her." The voice of his brother slithered into his ear like poison and he stepped into view out of the darkness as naturally as if he'd been there from the start. "Put that monster out of its misery. Just like I did."

Tears left tracks down Ardyn's cheeks. "I... I can't. My calling is to save lives. Not take them."

"Just like you saved that innocent man by turning him into a daemon?"

Aera met Ardyn's eyes, holding his gaze and paying no heed to Somnus. "Please, Ardyn... You must live..."

"I can't," Ardyn whispered. "Not without you."

The sound of the armiger raised the hairs on Ardyn's neck. Somnus swaggered into view again, brandishing Ardyn's own knife. He pressed it into Ardyn's hands in a mockery of gentleness and curled his own hands around them.

"Come. Why not give the lady what she wants?"

Somnus forced the knife down and Ardyn had to seize every muscle in his body to keep it from striking true. His brother was strong... too strong. He'd never been this strong in life. Arms weakened by millennia suspended on chains shook with the strain. Somnus seemed to require no effort. His eyes focused on the blade, his face twisted in malice.

Not again. He wouldn't let this happen again.

Ardyn threw every bit of strength he had into an upward shove and, with a shout, sent the knife sailing away. Somnus let him fall to the ground, chuckling.

"Allow me."

Crystalline weapons erupted from the air above Aera's prone form. Ardyn screamed, dove toward her, but too late. The blades came down; Ardyn shut his eyes. No sound met his ears save his own ragged breath. He remained prone, shielding his head with his hands, face down where he'd fallen. He could still smell sylleblossoms, but the ground beneath his forehead was concrete, not soil.

"I'll never forgive you, Somnus."

ά/δ/ά/ς/ί/μ/м

* * *

The hiss of the door opening broke the silence in the room. Ardyn didn't lift his head from his hands, nor move from his perch on the edge of the exam table. The panic had left him hollow in its wake—wrung out and clammy. He wanted to sleep but he feared the dreams that would come.

"That was excellent work, today."

Ardyn could have spat at Besithia. Some dark and hungry part of him imagined daemonifying him.

"I can only imagine what you must have learned."

"Nothing of aid to your research, I assure you."

Besithia moved closer, until Ardyn could see his boots on the pale floor. "You must want vengeance after all you saw today. Aid my work and I can offer you infinite opportunity to exact justice upon Lucis."

Ardyn raised his head and fixed his eyes upon Besithia. A chill crawled over his skin as he remembered that laugh. The one that hadn't sounded like Somnus. The one that had sounded like it was coming from a speaker.

"How much of that was you?"

Besithia was still for a moment, then he sighed. A guilty smirk tugged at his mouth. "You're cleverer than I gave you credit for."

Ardyn snarled through tears that threatened to fall from burning eyes. "Why?"

"Because it got you where I needed you." Besithia's expression was dispassionate. "PTSD symptoms are easy to manipulate. Just as daemons are easy to contain. You'll find I'm skilled at both. Now, you can help me with my magitek research willingly and be rewarded with freedom of movement about this facility, or you can refuse and be confined to this room as an experimental subject. The choice is yours."

Some choice.

Ardyn set his jaw. "I will not help you build an army of daemons to murder and subjugate. You may not believe in callings; I don't care. But I have mine, and it is to preserve life." He looked away from Besithia to the plain, white wall across from him. "Do as you will. I will give you nothing."

For a moment, Besithia was silent. Then, with a derisive snort, he turned toward the door. "Resist if it makes you feel better. But I'll get what I want." The door shut behind him and Ardyn let the tears fall from his eyes. For all the show of hospitality, he'd simply exchanged one prison for another. One with neither fresh air nor anything by which to measure the passage of day and night. And while he no longer hung on hooks, there was, instead, the promise of more pain to come.

He wasn't certain if he should ever have expected anything else.

ά/δ/ά/ς/ί/μ/м

* * *

Besithia was nothing if not creative. Ardyn had believed himself prepared for any sort of torture mankind could concoct, but, alas, with technology and science, had come fresh horrors to inflict. His cell was emptied until all that remained were four white walls and an open drain in one corner. At first the lights were doused and he was left in utter darkness for hours... days? Then, with no warning, the lights were brought up to full, blinding, brightness. They remained that way for weeks. Besithia would periodically visit to harvest miasma from him and during those visits the lights would turn purple, searing his skin until miasma poured from him.

Occasionally the light or darkness would be accompanied by droning noise so loud that his eardrums bled. So loud that he couldn't hear his own thoughts. So loud that it left him shivering and dazed, lying curled on the floor, crying and deaf. The only time he left the room was when he was hauled into a shower and hosed down with freezing water. He hadn't been provided clothes after his first ice-bath, and he returned to his cell naked. What food he was given was tasteless, odourless, grey mush. He was rarely allowed to sleep.

None of Besithia's methods hurt or damaged him as much as tortures he had already suffered at the hands of his brother, yet, somehow, they were swifter to wear away his resolve. He was exhausted, cold, aching down to the marrow of his bones, all sense of time shattered, half-deaf and disoriented. Resisting required energy he did not possess. He stopped fighting during Besithia's harvests. And when his underlings began visiting to draw blood, Ardyn remained passive, watching the little vials fill with thick, black fluid.

But when Besithia had him placed in a larger cell—this one full of people—and demanded that he daemonify them all, Ardyn refused. He refused, even when the purple lights came on. Even when one of the guards jabbed a rod against his side and electricity burned through him. Even as his muscles spasmed, as pain arced along every nerve, as his bowels released. And he refused, even when Besithia had every one of them—men, women, children—shot dead before his eyes.

He was left in that cell for a few days, and though he had no holy oil and none of the dead appeared to be Lucian, he granted each of them their last rites. There was naught else he could do.

Besithia tried again, with animals, soldiers, captured rebels, captured Lucians. Each time he refused, Ardyn spent weeks on a metal frame, held in a pose reminiscent of that in which he'd been suspended on Angelgard. Electricity, a hundred times stronger than the guards' cattle prods, was run through him, left on until his heart stopped or until he passed out. And all the while, visions of Somnus continued to haunt him.

He couldn't begin to guess how long he endured. It could have been months, it could have been years. But his resolve eventually cracked. Two weeks with no sleep, an ice water shower, and eight hours of electroshock and he caved. Besithia asked for information—Ifrit's knowledge of Solheim magiteknology—and Ardyn gave it to him. The torture ceased. He was given clothes. And when he answered the next day's questions without resistance, he was given a bed.

Nevertheless, he tried to resist when he was placed in a cell with several dozen falxfangs. But they'd been starved beforehand, and they attacked, despite undoubtedly smelling the Scourge on him. Bone-tired and outnumbered, panic won out. He daemonified all of them.

It was behemoths next time. Then behemoths became malboros and birdbeasts and spiracorns. Then animals became humans. Stolen memories crowded his every moment, both waking and dreaming. Memories of family, of homes, of sparkling cities and quiet towns, of long black roads and colourful mechanical carriages. Cars... They were called cars.

He remembered running down garula, sinking fangs into their throats to haul them to the ground. Baying to pack-mates as his prey struggled its last. Firearms drills in a cramped training room, pistol kicking in his hand, each bullet striking true on the paper target. Laying explosives under sandy desert roads. Watching from atop a butte as Niflheim troop transports vanished in bursts of flame and noise. His clan's yurts burning while armour-clad soldiers dragged him and his family into trucks.

The worst memories were those in which _he _was the monster. The rebel who beat his children before bed each night. The Lucian spy who stabbed another girl in a back alley over a bag of pills. The soldier who raped a woman in every village he helped pacify. The remembered feeling of blood running, warm, over his hands, of a wooden rod reverberating with the impact against small bodies, and the remembered sounds of creaking tables, loud sobbing, and the slap of flesh left him sleepless and nauseous.

The horror of it all was that the more memories he absorbed, the harder it became to distinguish those that were stolen from those that were his own. The thoughts, the feelings, the dreams and beliefs of hundreds of living beings collided and blended, shattering and reforming until he hardly recognized himself. He didn't recognize the fits of anger, the thrumming urge for violence, for blood, the thrill that rushed through him when another daemonified victim stilled beneath his hand. A thrill that left him retching in a corner of the cell, shame and horror and disgust wringing his guts. What remained recognizably _him _careened wildly between periods of fatigue and crushing emptiness, bursts of mad laughter, and long stretches of uncontrollable weeping.

He was losing his mind. Worse, he was losing himself. And there was no telling who, or what, would emerge from his ashes.

He would have given anything to return to Angelgard. Hell, even Pitioss would be better than this place. But he'd long since stopped beseeching the gods for mercy. His prayers fell on deaf ears.

As ever, he was alone.


	2. Between the Shadow and the Soul

_Chapter II – Between the Shadow and the Soul_

* * *

_M.E. 725_

The lights were down for the night; his cell was mostly dark. But the small, greenish light—an orb of soft, white plastic that activated with a press—provided dim illumination. Enough to see the four, plain walls, the desk on which lay several well-thumbed books, the panelled screen which partitioned off the corner where a toilet and sink now covered the drain, and the bed on which he lay. By the screen there was a waste basket, and in the desk drawer were pens, paper, and a charger for the light.

It was the extent of his world, and had been for what must have been years now. It would make a comfortable prison were it not for his "chores." Chores which shattered his memory anew each time—less a man and more a man-shaped cacophony of places, names, lives, loves, hates, half-remembered dreams, and jumbled shards of trivia. He tried to remember his parents and a thousand different faces swam in his mind. He tried to remember his childhood home and a foggy chimaera structure pieced and unpieced itself as he watched. He held onto his sense of self only by clinging desperately to the sharpest, most painful memories. The day Aera died... The day he first realized he'd contracted the Scourge... His torment on Angelgard... Somnus.

Around those anchors he'd woven a tenuous web of self—memories that connected to those anchors and so must be his. Healing villagers of the Scourge as they writhed and howled. Trailing Aera through ruins. Pointing out constellations to Somnus as they lay in the grass, still just boys. Gilgamesh—his calloused hands, the white plait of his hair, the patterns of raised scars on the deep brown skin of his back, chest, and arms. These were his treasures, and he clutched them with the fervour a starving pauper would a loaf of bread.

Each morning upon waking and each night before sleep, he would lie in his bed and remind himself who he was. For if he could forget his parents' faces, how long would it be before he forgot himself?

"Your name is Ardyn Lucis Caelum. You are the firstborn son of Iovianus and Gwenhwyfar. You are the rightful King of Lucis. The fiancé of Aera Mirus Fleuret." He recited the words into the darkness like a prayer, eyes closing as he pressed his cheek into the thin pillow. "You are a healer. Your Shield's name is Izunia Gilgamesh." He always said 'is' and 'are.' He couldn't bring himself to say 'was' and 'were.' Thinking it was enough.

"Ardyn..."

He whimpered and curled in on himself. Today had been a bad day; he didn't have the strength left to face a flashback.

"This isn't a flashback, Ardyn. I promise."

Ardyn froze, didn't even breathe. He opened one cautious eye and his heart constricted in his chest.

The cell was lit in dazzling white. White that outshone the little light on his desk. White that carried no warmth, only the scent of sylleblossoms. White that emanated from the slender figure standing between his bed and the door.

Aera.

Words dried up in his throat. He pushed himself up until he was crouched on the bed, but it was all he could manage, hands shaking as they were. Aera's hands were clasped before her; she appeared almost embarrassed. But her smile was sad, not sheepish.

"I'm sorry... About before. I shouldn't have tried to use your hallucination to reach you." Aera shuffled her feet. "It was easier for me... But not for you."

The breath that Ardyn forced into his winded lungs stabbed like an icy knife into his heart. He opened his mouth, but before a single word made it past his lips, his throat tightened and the sting of fresh tears seared his eyes. His voice came out half-choked and cracking. "You were real."

"Yes. At least at first."

"How are you here?"

"With great difficulty." He reached for her and she stepped back. "And if you try to touch me I won't be able to maintain this apparition." She shook her head and the light shimmered with her movement.

Every fibre of muscle, every filament of bone, screamed to go to her, to draw her into his arms and never let her go. But Ardyn remained on the bed, shaking as tears dripped from his jaw. "It's been _so long_..." His voice broke until it was a whisper. "Take me with you."

"I can't." Tears formed in Aera's eyes, too. "I'm sorry, Ardyn. But I can't."

"Why did you want me to blame you? For what happened?"

"Because Verstael was trying to direct blame onto Lucis. He was trying to use you, to use your pain and fashion you into a weapon for his war." Her fingers worried at the sash of her dress. "I thought if I could redirect your anger, I could foil him."

Ardyn met her eyes, managing a stricken half-smile. "I could never blame you."

"I had to try. And I didn't have much time to plan. I was on the spot."

_Gods, _he wanted to kiss her, to hold her, to run his fingers through that flaxen hair. He could scarcely bring himself to look away from her even to blink. Centuries had passed bereft of her; her voice, her stories, her slender, insistent hands, her soft, round face, her eyes—the colour of a summer sky. To stay his hand from reaching for her was bitter torture. She was real, and solid, and _right there. _Yet, between them, his immortality was an invisible and uncrossable barricade.

"One day he will succeed," he said, and the horror of those words gnawed at the inside of his chest. "A day will come when I no longer have the strength to resist him. I can't hold on forever, Aera."

"You won't have to." Her hand twitched toward his shoulder before she drew it sharply back. "It's what I came to tell you... Help is on the way." Her eyes dropped to the floor a moment. She pursed her lips, brought her brows together in a determined grimace, and brought her gaze back to Ardyn's eyes. "Promise me you won't turn it away."

Ardyn stared at her. "Why would I do that?"

"You'll understand soon." She held his gaze. "Promise me."

"I promise."

The sadness didn't leave Aera's eyes, but her smile was warm and wide. She stepped to the bedside and leaned in close enough that Ardyn dared no breathe lest the illusion of her presence shatter. "I love you, Ardyn. And I will wait for you... No matter how long." She paused, and her voice grew sombre. "But I have to go now."

"Please stay. Please."

"I wish I could." She looked into his eyes for a few fleeting seconds, then, before Ardyn could protest, she leaned forward and kissed him. He felt the press of her lips an instant before she vanished—her image bursting into a shower of pyreflies and fading light. His broken, inarticulate sound echoed in the empty room. By the time the last of Aera's light faded, Ardyn's eyes were closed. He crumpled, forehead dropped to the sheets before his knees. He wept, though he had no tears left. Wept until he heaved. Until his head ached and he slumped sideways, falling into an uneasy slumber.

ά/δ/ά/ς/ί/μ/м

* * *

The campfire cracked and snapped on the sappy wood, already climbing high and vigorously sparking. Ardyn drew in a deep breath, savouring the earthy and oddly fragrant smoke, but the breath caught in his chest and his exhale became a wet, wheezing cough. Spatters of black were left on his hand; he wiped it away with a scrap of parchment and threw the scrap on the fire.

"Your cough is getting worse."

Gilgamesh reached into the mostly-erected tent and retrieved a heavy woollen blanket which he promptly wrapped around Ardyn's shoulders. His face was inscrutable, especially in the uneven firelight. He'd been subdued since setting Ardyn's limp and shivering body next to the fire pit. He'd said little; just wrapped Ardyn in blankets, lit a fire, and set up the tent.

"I did a lot of healing today."

With a half-hearted prod at the fire, Gilgamesh sat at Ardyn's side.

"You push yourself too hard."

"I can't turn away the sick just because I'm tired." He was more than tired. For over a year now, a constant ache had sat behind his breastbone. The flesh inside his lungs felt raw; sharp or deep breaths and cold air burned like acid. He lost his wind easily. He'd started wheezing when he laughed. Everything he coughed up was black. It was pneumonic Scourge, and it grew worse with every man, woman, and child he healed.

Ardyn doubted any of this had escaped Gilgamesh's notice. He was an astute man. But he hadn't yet told Somnus, or Aera. He didn't know how.

When Gilgamesh spoke again, his tone was schooled. "If you do not rest, who will heal you when the Scourge takes you?"

And it would, wouldn't it? At some point in the not-too-distant future he'd become one of those sad, shambling creatures his brother put down. Gods, he tried not to think about it.

"I have the power to heal these people... where my brother would kill them. How can I deny them this gift?"

"And if it kills you?"

"There will be thousands who will live on in my stead. There will be children born who would not otherwise be born. Families who will remain whole rather than be torn asunder and left to grieve. Next to that... my life is nothing."

"Not to me." The words were spoken so softly that Ardyn almost missed them. "And not to Aera." His eyes were fixed on the glyph-marked stone beneath him, but Gilgamesh wasn't seeing it. He was staring straight through it.

"Gilly..."

"You're supposed to be king."

Ardyn swallowed. "A good king puts the needs of his people before his own."

"How will you do so if you are dead?"

No retort came to Ardyn's tongue and silence stooped upon them like some enormous lammergeier. Gilgamesh looked exhausted; more so than Ardyn had ever seen. Puffy flesh ringed sunken, hooded eyes. Locks of silver hair had come loose from their ties to drape about his face. Just looking at him like this made Ardyn's heart ache.

"I was given these powers for a reason," he said, low and hoarse. "Surely the gods meant for me to use them."

For the first time since the conversation started, Gilgamesh looked at him. In the dim light, the rich brown of his eyes looked black. "Your people put too much faith in their gods. The Astrals are fickle and capricious." He paused, hesitant in a way distinctly unlike him. "The stories of my people say that the scourge came to our world on the same stones as the Astrals themselves. Who is to say that they did not bring it here? To keep us kneeling at their altars."

"I can't believe that," Ardyn breathed. "I won't believe that."

"I won't ask you to." Gilgamesh reached over and took his hand. "All I ask is that you not be so quick to throw your life on their mercy."

_Six, _but he remembered this conversation. He remembered being tended by Gilgamesh for the rest of the night and into the next morning. He remembered crying into Gilly's shoulder when reality set in. Of all nights at camp to dream about...

He tried to change the scene to something happier, but despite his awareness that he was dreaming, the landscape of the dream did not obey him. The haven became an endless set of hallways watched by endless swivelling security cameras. Every door led to another hallway. Every window looked out on starless darkness. He was alone, aside from a shadowy presence that was always a few steps behind him. He could have tried waking himself, he supposed, but why bother? At least in his dream he could walk around. And as monotonous as the hallway maze was, it was more interesting than the ceiling of his cell.

Well... Somewhat.

ά/δ/ά/ς/ί/μ/м

* * *

Weskham hadn't been kidding when he said the van was well hidden. If Regis hadn't warped clean into the side of it, they might never have found it. And they were lucky no patrols had been anywhere in earshot, because the hollow sound of Regis' head striking the bodywork rang like a bell in the night air. Before his ass even hit the forest floor, Weskham and Cid were out of the van, guns raised. When they spotted him, Cid laughed almost as loud, until Weskham clapped a hand over his mouth.

Sitting on the ridgeline, staring through binoculars, Regis' head still throbbed. "This is the place we're supposed to hit?"

"Sure is," Cid replied, chewing on the cigarette Clarus wouldn't let him light. "Exactly where the Oracle said it'd be."

"So what am I looking at?"

"First Magitek Production Facility," Weskham said. "The nerve center of their military research and lair of the one and only Chief Verstael Besithia."

Beside him, Clarus fidgeted. "This is insane. A small base is one thing. Something this size is a task for an army platoon. We can't take the _prince _in there."

"I'm right here," Regis grumbled. "And yes we can."

"Besithia is one of Aldercapt's inner circle," Clarus snarled. "There's no way the security in there isn't beyond us. We should call in the Crownsguard."

For the first time that evening, Cor spoke up. "After the first attempts to recover Adagium, he likely won't react well to Crownsguard troops. We don't want to fight the guy we're supposed to be rescuing."

"Then we wait for backup from Tenebrae. Isn't Sylva's boyfriend a dragoon?"

Regis scoffed. "What am I? Chopped liver? We don't need backup."

Clarus made a frustrated noise and dropped his forehead to his clenched fists.

"Relax, Clarus," Weskham said. "I haven't spent the last week sitting on my ass in a van. Come and have a look." He shuffled down the ridge and got to his feet, gesturing toward the trees. "I promise security won't be a problem." He started back the way they'd come; Cid and Cor followed. Clarus didn't move, so Regis hung back.

"Come on, Clarus. This isn't the craziest thing we've ever done."

"Yes, it is."

"Hey, if this prophecy is really that important then the gods won't let me die." In the full force of Clarus' glare, Regis felt his bravado wither. "I mean. They can't, right?"

"Don't tempt them." Clarus released a forceful sigh and rose to his feet. "We're already working against them, are we not?"

Fair. Lady Oriana had made it fairly clear that none of this was astral-approved. Dad was probably going to get an earful the next time he went before the crystal. But as far as Regis was concerned, this was a family matter and the big space dragon could butt out.

He was _not _going to say any of that to Clarus though.

"Let's just go see what Weskham's got in there," Clarus said, resigned.

They returned to the van in silence. Regis resisted the urge to fill that silence; a taciturn Clarus was simply a worried Clarus, after all. And that little scowly face he got was kinda cute.

The back of the van was hardly recognizable as a van. The entire interior was walled in wood panelling that deadened sound. There were two seats, facing a shallow desk and a wall of screens. Each screen showed four separate camera feeds—monochrome and grainy. Behind the seats was a narrow, padded bench with two bunched up sleeping bags tossed on it. There was a sliding door between the rear compartment and the front seats. Next to it, mounted on the panelling, was a black telephone. Surveillance equipment lined every nook and cranny, most of which Regis couldn't have identified.

Weskham sat in the forwardmost seat with his ankle propped up on his knee, pointing with his pen. "Behold a week's work. Through these screens I have eyes on the entire facility. I can see through any camera on any floor, inside or outside, in real time."

"You hacked their CCTV?" Clarus glanced between Weskham and Cid.

"Sure did," Cid said. "And that ain't all."

Weskham patted the side of what looked like a souped-up VHS player. "Turn this baby on and I can put every camera on a two-hour loop simultaneously."

"I thought you said the system was designed to prevent looping," Cor said.

"I did. But Cid and I had a closer look at the alarm system and it turns out those alarms and only tripped if the time-stamp on one camera no longer matches the others."

Cid turned his chair around to face Regis. "Loop one or two cameras, alarms go off. Loop _all _the cameras..."

Regis grinned. "And they won't know anything's wrong."

"Precisely." Weskham clicked his pen on the desktop.

Clarus remained unimpressed, arms crossed and stone-faced. "Will you still be seeing real-time while the loop is running?"

"Yes. I've got earpieces for all of you, and I'll be guiding you all the way in and out."

"We got all sorts of shit when we got into their computers," Cid said. "They're running on a UNIX system, so it was damned easy to find things. I've got the floorplan, guard rotation schedule, access keys for all the doors. You name it, we got it."

With a sigh, Clarus pushed his hair back from his face. "Okay. Maybe this is doable... Just, let's take it slow and minimize combat. Keep it quiet and contained."

"Understood," Cor replied with a nod.

Regis slapped Clarus on the back. "What are we waiting for, then? Let's see those earpieces."

ά/δ/ά/ς/ί/μ/м

* * *

"_Hold position. You've got two troopers incoming_."

Regis ducked in between two support struts. Across the narrow hall, Clarus and Cor did likewise. It was the umpteenth time they'd done it, and Regis idly wondered how long it had taken them to descend the three levels they had. They'd managed fifteen stealth kills and only one out-and-out fight so far. And with all the bodies in the armiger, no alarms had yet been raised. Even Clarus had stopped scowling.

The troopers passed; Regis and Cor stepped out from concealment. Two muffled pops and the soldiers dropped. Regis waved his hand and the bodies vanished in puffs of crystalline shards.

"_Nice work, Highness. You're clear ahead_."

Cid's voice cut in. "_Hang a right at the end of the hall. Then your first left after that. There'll be a set of stairs leading down to the detention level_."

"Any trash compactors?" Regis asked and heard Clarus snort.

"_'Fraid not. But you can dress up as a Nif to rescue the dude in distress if you like_."

"Let's keep moving," Clarus growled. "This isn't playtime."

Despite the empty halls, they moved quietly, checking corners and keeping their weapons drawn. The descent into the dimly lit detention level didn't lessen the feeling of being exposed. The walls were smooth, with no nooks or crannies to duck into should the need arise.

"_Okay. Directly ahead there should be a hallway. At the end is a T-junction. The left most door is our guy. But there are four guards and they look like they've got some new kind of armour. Watch yourselves._"

"Got it," Regis whispered. "Thanks, Wesk."

"New armour... Those must be the new troops the Field Marshals have been talking about." Clarus shifted uneasily. "They've been shattering our lines."

"How do you want to do this?" Regis asked.

"Hit them from both sides," Cor replied. "Fast and hard. We charge together; you warp to their far side. Make the tight quarters work in our favour."

Clarus nodded, and that was good enough for Regis. With a wave and a burst of crystals, he drew his sword from the armiger. Beside him, Clarus and Cor did the same.

They crept to the T-junction in silence and, on Regis' signal, burst around the corner. Regis tossed his sword, let the world shatter around him, dissolving into cold and blue and weightlessness. Then a tug at his hand, scattering crystal shards, flooring beneath his feet. He spun and cleaved his blade through the armour of the nearest trooper, who fell back with a clatter. Across from him, Clarus hewed another. Cor's blade flashed and hamstrung a third. The fourth crumpled beneath Clarus' greatsword.

So much for those new troops.

The thought hardly had a chance to cross Regis' mind. Before he could say a word, before he could dismiss his weapon, before he could even take another breath, the trooper at his feet stirred. Whirring and clanking filled the hushed passageway. All four troopers rose as one. First their legs, then hips, their torsos hanging behind them, rolling up into standing position joint by joint, like horrific marionettes. They shrieked—high pitched and daemonic—as their heads clicked into place. There was no way there were humans in those suits. There couldn't be.

"Fucking hell," Clarus said.

Regis stared, slack-jawed, until the troopers raised their guns. He snapped his hand up and hexagon domes sprung up in front of him, Clarus, and Cor. The troopers opened fire and it was deafening. Despite the roar, he heard Cid's voice in his earpiece.

"_Destroy their Magitek cores_."

The gunfire paused, leaving spots on Regis' vision from the muzzle flash. He didn't give the trooper in front of him a chance to reload. He dropped shields and aimed his palm at the trio of glowing red dots on the left of the trooper's breastplate. Lightning jumped the foot between them, blackening armour, turning serge to ashes that drifted to the floor, edges still smouldering. The blazing arcs of electricity struck the Magitek core and, with another unearthly shriek, the trooper fell. Behind it, one of the others took aim at Cor, who crouched low over another, twisting a knife in its chest. Grappling with the fourth trooper, Clarus didn't see it. Regis called the Blade of the Mystic and, in one swift motion, drove it through the trooper's back and into its core. Sparks flew and it collapsed.

The silence that followed made their breaths seem all the louder. The only other sound was the faint hiss of residual sparks. Something thicker and blacker than smoke wafted from the shattered cores.

"What the fuck were those?" Regis asked.

"I don't know," Clarus replied, nearly whispering. "But let's not stick around asking questions. Let's get our guy and get the hell out of here."

ά/δ/ά/ς/ί/μ/м

* * *

Ardyn was accustomed to noise beyond his door. His may have been a remote corner, but the comings and goings of the facility still reached him. This was not comings and goings. This was metal on metal, gunfire, and the screams of dying MTs.

He wasn't particularly alarmed, mind. If this was another attempt on his life then it would be just that. An attempt. And the thought of being attacked hardly frightened him anymore. His pain threshold was too high for that. If they'd come to take him back to Angelgard he'd go with them gladly. Anything to get away from Besithia. Aera's words from the previous night hovered at the back of his mind but he dared not raise his hopes. Numbness was easier.

So he remained seated on his bed as the door rumbled open. Despite the commotion, he still expected Besithia to stride in, guards in tow. So he was somewhat surprised to see three young men at the threshold.

The tallest had dark hair—long and slicked back—and wore heavy boots, faded jeans, and a brown jacket, open to show a plain grey shirt. The shortest, who appeared no more than a boy, had his hair close-cropped beneath a black cap. His baggy trousers and leather jacket had a military cut to them and his grey top bore a crest that Ardyn didn't recognize. Both were armed, the former with a heavy greatsword and the latter with a thin katana. Between them, the third hardly looked like a man going into battle. His hair was teased up, flopping over his forehead in a manner which hardly seemed practical. He wore shoes, not boots, and jeans that appeared a touch too short. He had the sleeves of his purple plaid shirt rolled above his elbows. Beneath was a plain black shirt.

Ardyn's eyes stopped on the blade in his hand. _Somnus' _blade...

He snapped his gaze up to the man's face. There was no resemblance to his brother. Only the black hair was the same. "Who are you?" he asked.

The young man stepped into the cell. "I'm Regis Lucis Caelum. I'm here to rescue you."

_Lucis Caelum... _Ardyn tensed, phantoms of pains past flickered over nerve endings. The urge to call his own blade, to plunge it into this boy's chest before he could do the same to Ardyn, passed through his mind. His palm itched. Fear, and with it rage, flared hot and sharp behind his breastbone. Shattered fragments of a thousand minds not his own howled for violence, for blood, for the head of the Lucian crown prince, for revenge. The Scourge in his veins boiled and he had to force his jaw to unclench.

_Promise me you won't turn it away._

The memory of Aera's words cut through the haze of emotion and doused the vengeful flames his sickness was fanning. He dropped his eyes shut and exhaled the tightness in his gut. He would not fail Aera again. And he would _not _become the monster his brother made him out to be.

In his silence, Regis spoke again. "Look, I know you have no reason to trust me, and the last time Lucians got near you they tried to kill you, but my father didn't know then what he knows now."

"We shouldn't hang around," the taller man warned. Regis ignored him.

"Please. Come with us." He held out his hand.

Ardyn looked down at Regis' open palm. Hope was dangerous. To have hope in success was to hurt all the worse when failure struck. He'd weaned himself from that sweet poison long ago.

But he had a chance. And he'd made a promise.

He took Regis' hand and rose from his bed. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me til we're out of here."

Ardyn followed Regis out of the cell, stepping over the mangled remains of an MT. He didn't bother looking back. It wasn't as if there was anything in the room that he was loathe to leave behind. Even his books were merely paltry comforts that he would no longer need once he'd shed this place like a skin. There would be other books—books he hadn't read a dozen times over.

Regis touched something in his ear. "Okay, Wesk. We're on our way out."

ά/δ/ά/ς/ί/μ/м

* * *

Ardyn certainly wasn't what Regis had expected. He'd envisioned some wizened old man or someone more obviously daemonic. Sure he had yellow eyes, but Regis had expected... well, _Adagium. _Instead, he just looked sad and tired. And he didn't look particularly old either. Just a rugged sort of middle-aged.

They'd made it up a few floors without incident. Ardyn had fallen in with them easily and moved without a sound. Regis had so many questions, so many things he wanted to say, but until they were safely out under the open sky, they had to remain as quiet as possible.

In his ear, Wesk's voice cut in, mid-expletive. "_—ck. Heads up. I've lost the computer_."

Alarms blared, loud and strident, punctuating Weskham's words. Beside Regis, Ardyn flinched like a hunted animal.

"_Smile_," Cid said. "_You're on candid camera_."

"_Security's on the move. Get out of there_!"

They broke into a run, stealth abandoned. Troops flooded down the stairs in front of them and Clarus charged them, Cor close on his heels. Regis warped to join them, and as he cleaved down one trooper, red crystalline blades speared the soldier next to him. And the three behind him. _And _the big guy aiming for Cor.

Clarus and Cor turned as the last dead trooper hit the floor. Regis followed their gaze to Ardyn, whose brows rose as if confused by the sudden attention.

"Nice moves."

Ardyn bowed his head at Regis' words, composed despite his shaking hands.

"_Bad news_," Weskham said over the crackling radio line, sounding out of breath. "_Had to ditch the van. They found us. Gonna need to go radio silent. We'll meet you at the backup rendezvous point_."

"Gotcha. Watch yourselves."

"_Will do, Highness_."

Regis took a deep breath. "Cor. What's our closest exit?"

"Loading dock. East end of the complex, one level up." Cor nodded toward the stairs. "Five minutes and we'll be outside."

"Lead the way."

As empty as the halls had been before, they now swarmed with niflar soldiers. From the stairs to the loading dock it was a running battle. Regis tried not to overuse any royal arms, but Ardyn had no such qualms. The perks of being immortal, he supposed. While Regis stuck to his sword and the few guns he had stored in the armiger, Ardyn filled the halls with a flurry of red swords, knives, axes, hammers, and spears. The ozone smell of magic permeated the air, raising the fine hairs on his arms and neck.

The loading dock was cavernous—large enough to park airships in—and cold. The sound of their shoes on the concrete echoed off distant corrugated metal ceilings. It was well-lit, though dim compared to the hall they'd just left. Between them and the exit stood a small army of infantrymen and two Magitek armours. More soldiers lined the gantries overhead, rifles at the ready.

Instinct told him to hang back, strategize, but there was no time. It was run the gauntlet or surrender. And Regis hadn't come here to turn himself over. At his side, Ardyn drew forth a scarlet sword, the Blade of the Mystic's twin in every way save its colour. There was determination on his face now. Freedom was only thirty meters away and he really doubted Ardyn had any intention of going back now.

"Let's show 'em what we got."

Regis flung his sword and warped into the midst of the soldiers ahead. Three fell before they could react; a fourth toppled, howling, his leg severed below the knee. Streaks of red passed him on either side, and over the sound of Magitek servos he heard Clarus roar a challenge. Cor slid past one fire team, his katana carving through tendons. The MAs opened up with machine guns and Regis blocked them with shield spells. Something clipped his arm but he ignored it.

None of them bothered finishing off their opponents. They needed their forward momentum and Regis was damned if he was going to get bogged down now. He warped past a cluster of soldiers straight into the path of one of the MAs. It was big, bigger than those he'd fought in Galahd, but the design was similar. He aimed for the exposed ankle gears and let loose with the strongest lightning he could muster. He kept it arcing, even as Clarus grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him past the paralyzed mech. As Ardyn and Cor cut a path through the last few lines of soldiers. As Cor worked the keypad to open the door of one of the loading bays. The second mech opened fire and only then did Regis switch to shields once more. The door rattled open, agonizingly slow. Cor ducked through first, and Ardyn followed. Clarus yanked Regis through. Bullets peppered the hard pack as they sprinted for the gloom beyond the floodlight's reach. Harsh klaxons split the night air. The perimeter fence was closed and padlocked, but a salvo of Ardyn's armiger sheared a hole through the chain link. They plunged into the darkness beyond and ran.

ά/δ/ά/ς/ί/μ/м

* * *

Distant shouts rang in the night—some in common, others in niflatunge. Searchlight beams flashed through the trees and dog barks echoed. The footfalls of his rescuers crashed in leaf-litter around him. Their harsh breaths were their only other sounds.

Ardyn's hip ached, his left leg threatened to give out beneath him. The pallid, blue-grey sky overhead promised the agony of daylight, but the pull of freedom burned hotter in his chest than any noonday sun. The smell of trees and soil and recent rainfall filled his nostrils. The air in his lungs was moist and fresh. The trilling of a nightjar sounded somewhere deeper in the trees. It was a tantalizing hint of a world he hadn't heard or felt or tasted in two thousand years.

Down a steep incline, Regis and his retinue slowed. They turned sharply, closely following an exposed rock face down to a gulley, where a small waterfall trickled down the smooth gneiss. Near the bottom, two figures emerged from the undergrowth.

"Reggie?"

"You okay, Cid?"

"Am for now. But I'll be better once we hit the road."

The speaker was a short fellow with long blond hair, wearing denim jeans, a denim jacket, and a shirt emblazoned with 'Van Halen.' Next to him, the other man had his hair tied in tight, braided rows, his patterned shirt and slacks looking far too thin for the chill air.

"Same here," Regis glanced at Ardyn. "Come on. This way."

The distant sounds of the search dogged their steps as they followed a narrow dirt road down the mountainside. The sky turned rosy and birds were starting to sing by the time they reached the parking lot of a tiny rest stop. The Autohof sign flickered pinkish-red over the darkened windows of the shop. A trailer nearby bore the word 'Jägerhaus' in reflective paint. There was no sign of habitation, but they kept their heads down regardless. Regis led them to a dark minivan parked at the edge of the lone floodlight. The doors were only just shut when the engine grumbled to life and they pulled out onto a paved highway.

A few moments passed in breathless silence before Regis laughed, voice high with disbelief. "Holy shit. I can't believe we did that."

"Says the man who thought we didn't need backup," the taller man replied from the driver's seat.

"And we didn't." He slapped the other man's arm. "Come on. Crack a smile. We kicked ass back there." Exhausted half-chuckles filled the van. Regis craned around in his seat, his eyes falling to Ardyn. "Now that we're safe, I think some introductions are in order." He patted his tall friend's shoulder. "This is Clarus Amicitia. He's my shield." He pointed, first to the blond, then to the boy. "That's Cid Sophiar, our mechanic and tech wiz. And that's Cor Leonis. He's with the Crownsguard. And next to you is Weskham Armaugh, our diplomat and computer genius."

They each offered their hands in turn and Ardyn shook them. It was an unfamiliar gesture, but one he had observed often among Besithia's staff.

"Guys, meet my great-great-great... etcetera uncle: Ardyn Lucis Caelum."

Ardyn cleared his throat, his voice coming hoarse from months of minimal use. "Tis my pleasure." More words felt necessary but what to say eluded him. Profuse thanks and words of gratitude hovered in his head but they were far from completely safe, and he didn't want to tempt fate. He would prostrate himself once they were utterly beyond Besithia's reach, but not before. "Forgive my reticence... This all feels very surreal."

"Don't sweat it," Weskham said. "I'd be surprised if you _weren't _a bit dazed."

"Hell," Cid said. "I'd be certifiable after two days in that little white room o' yours. Can't imagine being there for years."

Ardyn met Regis' eyes. He tried again to see his brother in the young prince, but there was no likeness. There was softness to those eyes—green, Ardyn noted—that Somnus' had never had. A warmth far removed from his brother's flinty chill.

"Don't worry about talking if you're not ready," Regis said. "It's gonna be a long drive, so rest, talk, whatever you need. We've got food and drinks, and there are plenty of rest stops, so if you need a bathroom break, just pipe up."

Ardyn swallowed, hesitant to trust the relief blooming in his chest. "Thank you. All of you." He forced the tension from his shoulders. "Do you have water?"

Cor opened the plastic box near his feet and withdrew a bottle. He handed it over; chilled and slick with condensation. Ardyn gulped it down his parched throat. The water was clear and flavourless, clean as a glacial stream and just as cold. And it was glorious.

Regis grinned and returned to facing front. "We'll be in Tenebrae by evening. Relax and enjoy the ride."

ά/δ/ά/ς/ί/μ/м

* * *

It was indeed a long day of driving. For hours they drove through mountains blanketed by pine forest, broken here and there by spectacular lakes. The forest eventually thinned, becoming deciduous woodlands, then shrubby foothills, then grassland. They passed farmland and small towns, remote wood-stave chapels and half-demolished border markers where nations long since absorbed into Niflheim once welcomed travellers. They kept stops to a minimum, and Ardyn only left the van twice, and only to use gas station bathrooms. By evening they were heading back up into mountains and the terrain became familiar.

He knew these mountains, these trees, the smell of the air, the little pink flowers on the roadside. Tenebrae was as familiar to him as the plains of Lucis. It was like coming home. He very nearly wept when they passed the standing stones that stood upon the western border, exactly as they had when he had first travelled here as a young boy.

They had yet to ascend out of the marshy river valley when evening dipped toward dusk.

"We're not going to make it the rest of the way before nightfall," Clarus said. "There's a motel up ahead. I say we call it a day."

Regis yawned and stretched. "Fine by me. My knee's killing me."

The hollow ticking of the turn signal seemed louder now than in daylight as the van slowed and turned into a rutted parking lot. Ardyn ducked his face away from the floodlights as they passed beneath and pulled in to a spot near the check-in.

Clarus and Weskham went in to arrange a room while the rest of them milled, tired and disoriented, around the insect-spattered van. Ardyn felt conspicuous standing on the wet asphalt in his white laboratory clothes, but the only other people around were two young women smoking outside one of the rooms at the far end of the building. He closed his eyes, breathed in the perfumed air, listened to the chittering of bats and the rustle of wind in the canopy, and felt some of his anxiety melt off.

There were two beds and a fold-out couch in their room. Regis and Clarus claimed the bed furthest from the door, and Cor got the couch to himself. Weskham and Cid took turns in the shower, both loudly exclaiming their relief after a week in a surveillance van. Both offered to sleep on the floor or cram in with the prince, but Ardyn was glad for the company. After years alone, the feeling of proximity to another human was a comfort of indescribable proportion.

The sheets were soft, as were the pillows. In his head, Ardyn recited his nightly reminders and fell into a sounder sleep than he'd known in years.


End file.
